


build me a city

by nicalyse



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicalyse/pseuds/nicalyse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights he hates himself for ruining what they had, what they could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build me a city

Rachel Berry is extraordinary.

Jesse knows it. He's known it from the moment he first saw her, and meeting her, knowing her, falling in love with her - that all just confirmed what was already a certainty.

Some nights he hates himself for ruining what they had, what they could have been.

Most nights.

He's never going to find anyone like her.

He knows better than to try.

*

He goes to New York because it's what he should have done in the first place, where he should have been all this time. He borrows money from his aunt in Connecticut to get started, rents the least-terrible apartment that he can afford, and starts hitting every open call for which he is remotely qualified.

He keeps up with the goings on at NYADA because - Rachel.

There's no point in pretending that he isn't doing things for her, hoping that one day she will see that he's become, even knowing that she likely never thinks of him at all.

*

Jesse is cast as part of the ensemble in an off-off-Broadway production of a musical that no one has ever - nor will ever - heard of. It's terrible, but it's half a step above the nothing that he was doing before, and Jesse throws himself into it.

Rachel, he finds out, is cast off-Broadway in _The Fantasticks_.

His show opens first.

It's the only thing that keeps him from buying a ticket to hers.

*

Sometimes Jesse thinks that he peaked in high school, which is so fucking depressing that the only remedy is to get so drunk that the details of his life get foggy.

It never works, but he keeps trying.

*

One of his dance instructors mentions his name to a choreographer who mentions his name to a casting director who offers him a spot in the chorus in a workshop for a new musical based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

As far as breaks go it hardly counts, but it's still better than nothing. He goes to rehearsal and works his ass off, and when he's asked to fill in for the guy playing the boyfriend, he thinks it's his opportunity to show everybody what he's got.

And he knows, he _knows_ that they're impressed with him, and it feels good. It's _right_.

But he stays in the chorus.

Because, as they say, that's the breaks.

*

While Jesse's career is stalled, Rachel's seems to be moving right along. He takes a chance and sends flowers to the theater on opening night when she's cast as Mimi in one of the ever-present off-Broadway productions of _Rent_.

He wastes twenty minutes standing in the shop trying to decide what to write on the card, whether he should even bother.

He tells the guy behind the counter not to worry about the card, "She'll know who they're from," he lies and leaves the shop.

He calls back when he's three blocks away, says he changed his mind and dictates the message to the person on the phone, a girl this time.

_I always pictured you as more of a Maureen._

*

All of those things he should have done differently or better or at all - he has a list written in black ink in a black Moleskine notebook. He crosses things out when he fixes his mistakes.

He skipped the first line.

It's the space that would say _Rachel Berry_ if he could bring himself to write her name.

*

_Thank you for the flowers._

He's at a bar when he gets her text, mostly drunk and possibly still entirely too sober. It's been a week since he sent the flowers.

_How did you know they were from me?_

_No one can couch an insult in a compliment quite like you, Jesse._

_It wasn't meant to be an insult, Rachel._

_I'm sure that it wasn't. Thank you again._

He recognizes the dismissal for what it is, and rather than make himself look like an asshole by trying to continue the conversation, Jesse orders another drink.

He's learning.

*

Jesse gets called when the Red Riding Hood project - now called _Scarlet_ \- finally gets funding to open in an off-Broadway theater. It's still just a chorus part, but it's a part, and he isn't so proud that he's going to turn it down.

Not any more.

*

He reads about _Funny Girl_ on one of the Broadway websites. The revival that they've been trying to get off the ground for years is finally happening.

And Rachel Berry has been cast as Fanny Brice.

Jesse swallows down the inferiority that bubbles up in his throat and sends her a text message offering his congratulations.

He doesn't get a response, but it's okay. He's finally learning how to deal with disappointment.

*

The night that _Scarlet_ opens, flowers are delivered to the theater for Jesse, an arrangement that almost matches the one that he sent to Rachel for _Rent_. The attached card is unsigned.

_I always pictured you as more of a Big Bad Wolf._

Jesse always was the villain in Rachel Berry's story.

He's pretty sure that's all he's ever going to be.


End file.
